The mercenaries came to the totally culturally irrelevant awards ceremony armed with throwing stars, poison darts, and their cloaks of invisibility to carry out their mission (and possibly catch a glimpse of Gaga getting hatched from an egg before, a sight not even ninjas get to see every day). But not long after the chorus to Bieber’s hit “Never Say Never” kicked in with “and there’s just no turning back/when your heart’s under attack,” the ninjas hired to kill the 16 year-old pop sensation realized that that was exactly what was happening to them.

Their cold ninja hearts were under attack, besieged with fever…Bieber Fever.

I could fall on him and snap his neck with my bare hands and no one would ever know what happened. But he's just so goddern adorbs! <333

I spent five years of my early childhood in Canada, and when we eventually moved back to Texas, one of the things that really tripped me up was how no one in the States drank milk out of a bag. The first lunch at my American elementary school was totally traumatic because I didn’t know how to open a milk carton. I observed the other kids opening theirs and tried faking it, but I wound up trying to open it from the wrong end, only to make a papery mess of things. I’m pretty sure the other kids thought I was retarded.

(The other lunchtime item I had never encountered during my time in the Great White North? Tater tots. A travesty!)

Years later, someone is finally exposing this great cultural divide. Phew.

“Hey guys! I really love China. Xie Xie. Thank you so much for having me. I’ve really enjoyed making pop–er, sorry–punk music for the last couple years. Do you want me to sing for you? I’ve been practicing my Mandarin. Want me to show you? Hey! (Hey!) You! (You!) Do you want me to show you? Shinghowhowdamanechohooo. You don’t understand what that means? Hmm. Oh well! Konichiwa? Um. I’m Canadian, Eh! Buy my album!”

I’ve thought of shaming Canadian pop princess Avril Lavigne for a number of reasons, though I admit to loving her just a wee bit–she’s tiny, she’s purty, and I’ll be damned if her songs ain’t just as catchy as a venereal disease.

Never mind that I blame her as the figurehead for the proliferation of the Hot Topic generation–a loathsome bunch guilty of homogenizing punk attire and invalidating the epic cool of studded belts to such a degree that they will likely never recover. Never mind that she’s been accused of plagiarism multiple times, most recently by 1970s band The Rubinoos, who are currently suing over some pretty noticeable song theft in her mega-hit “Girlfriend.”

No, the real shame comes from the Mandarin “version” of the aforementioned mega-hit, which has been circulating the Net for some time now…